Maya Angelou
Nothing will work unless you do.
Nature has no mercy at all. Nature says, "I'm going to snow. If you have on a bikini and no snowshoes, that's tough. I am going to snow anyway."
My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.
My life has been one great big joke, a dance that's walked a song that's spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.
My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
Most plain girls are virtuous because of the scarcity of opportunity to be otherwise.
Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: ''I'm with you kid. Let's go.''
Life loves the liver of it.
It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.
If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning 'Good morning' at total strangers.
If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.
If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain.
If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.
If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.
If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform a million realities.
I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.
I find it interresting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at commensurate speed.
I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.
I believe that every person is born with talent.